Sinn Féin chairman Mr Mitchel McLaughlin claimed today a soldier made "a serious effort" to blow his head off on Bloody Sunday.
Giving evidence to the Saville Inquiry, the leading republican compared the British army gunfire in Derry on January 30th 1972 to a turkey shoot and said at one point he thought his father had been shot in front of him.
Mr McLaughlin also denied knowing the identity of IRA members at the march saying it was a secret organisation.
Counsel for the tribunal Mr Christopher Clarke QC asked him which branch of the republican movement he belonged to in 1970, to which he answered: "Provisional Sinn Féin".
Mr Clarke said: "You must have had some knowledge of the personnel that were involved in the Provisional IRA in Derry on January 30 1972?"
Mr McLaughlin replied: "Well, not necessarily."
"I myself did not, and quite consciously and deliberately did not, involve myself either in gossip about what people had done or any discussions about the decisions that they had taken."
Mr Clarke asked: "Were you aware of the identity of active service IRA volunteers in the Provisional IRA in Derry on January 30 1972?"
He replied: "No, none whatsoever."
Mr McLaughlin, who was 26 on the day of the killings, also said he took part in a riot at a military barricade containing a civil rights demonstration in the Bogside that day.
He claimed a public announcement had been made to the effect the Provisional IRA was staying away from the parade ahead of march.
In his account of the day Mr McLaughlin claimed he emerged from Chamberlain Street into the car park of the Rossville Flats where he saw a small group of people around the body of Jackie Duddy, 17, a neighbour whom he knew "quite well".
He stated: "I ran towards the group of people who were standing around the body on the ground to see if I could help. It was like running into a turkey shoot."
He then saw Mr Michael Bridge at the scene, hysterically challenging soldiers to shoot him, and "one of the soldiers casually lifted his gun and shot him".
Mr McLaughlin claimed he helped drag the wounded Mr Bridge away from the troops. Mr Bridge survived a wound to his leg.
He later ventured further away from the scenes of the heaviest gunfire to Free Derry Corner where most of the marchers had gathered and said he spotted his father among the crowd.
"Suddenly a volley of shots rang out from the Glenfada Park North direction and people who were walking with their hands on their heads threw themselves forward down on to the ground.
"My instant reaction was to think that my father had just been shot right in front of my eyes. My heart stopped and I think I was in shock at this point."
He later returned home to find all his family safe but "frantic" about him.
"I think my family had heard rumours about where I was in the Bogside and perhaps they thought the worst."
PA